


Map it out, honey (and be surprised)

by iskapal



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Jon and the Starks Are Not Related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 01:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19780009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iskapal/pseuds/iskapal
Summary: Sansa had always prided herself for being an optimist.She had her whole life mapped out in front of her at age 8 – in a small, pink, Lisa Frank binder, with colorful flowers, and a large howling wolf on the cover that seemed out of place. She’d stick to it – not missing a bullet point to accomplish at the end of the page.-or Sansa learns that not everything she plans to happen, happens. And when they do, it's not in the way she wants it to be. Take meeting Jon Snow, for example. -





	Map it out, honey (and be surprised)

Sansa had always prided herself for being an optimist.

She had her whole life mapped out in front of her at age 8 – in a small, pink, Lisa Frank binder, with colorful flowers, and a large howling wolf on the cover that seemed out of place. She’d stick to it – not missing a bullet point to accomplish at the end of the page. Arya would always roll her eyes whenever she sees it; Robb just laughs and pats her arm and say, ‘good luck’; while little Bran would just look at her with those large blue eyes, while she writes on it, in the most perfect cursive her mother would be proud of. Of all the reactions her siblings have, it was Bran’s that unnerves her most of all.

“Those are intelligent eyes.” Grandpa Rickard says to her one day, nodding to Bran who’s playing with a plush black stuffed toy one of Papa’s friends – Mr. Reed, gifted him for his first birthday. _Who, in their right mind, gives a one-year-old a raven for a gift, never minding it’s still a stuffed toy?_

_Where did Mr. Reed even got that toy?_

“Just like you had, dear, when you were his age.” Sansa looks at her Grandpa. “Robb’s and Arya’s were different – theirs were smart, but mischievous.” Grandpa muses, and Sansa giggles. “Yours, though, the moment I saw your eyes, I knew they had a spark.”

“What does that mean, Grandpa?” “It means, that you, my dear, are capable of great things. And you’ll achieve these great things. Everything you’d ever wish for will be yours, I’m sure of it.” 

* * *

There’s a wall, in Sansa’s room, filled with medals, and trophies. However, unlike the medals and trophies Arya and Robb have on their walls, from soccer and taekwondo, hers are from her excellence in academics. Bran, now in third grade, is staring to fill his wall with medals too.

Rickon’s still in daycare, so his awards are seen through stamps on his skin – blue ink the shape of stars (mostly moons), but he’s enamored by them – even refuses to wash his hands before dinner in fear of the water washing away his achievements for the day. Mostly, he’ll sulk, other times, he’ll throw a tantrum, and Sansa would wish to all the gods that he’d be quiet for just a second so that she’ll be able to finish whatever paper that’s due the next day. No amount of pleading could get him to stop. Only when their mother gently leads his hands onto the sink, and whisper softly, does he calm down.

“Well, if you’re a good boy, you’ll have all of these again, tomorrow. New fresh ones, would you like that, little one?” He’d only give a slight nod, and a faint sniffle, and he’d wash his hands upon the sink, with a smile slowly creeping up his face as their mother tickles him on his sides. Soon, her little brother’s giggles would fill the house, and all their laughter would soon follow.

_Would you look at that. Her wish did come true._

It’s a start. 

* * *

She's smart - smarter than everyone at her year level, Professor Luwin says so himself. Her parents are ecstatic, if not, a little worried. She's going to be 2 years younger than all of her classmates - that, and the fact that she'd have to move to the Vale scares them even more.

In the end, Sansa manages to sway her parents in her favor, and now she's at the airport, luggage at hand, with her family. Robb's already stepping up to the role of the protective big brother, and Sansa just rolls her eyes at her older brother's theatrics. _When will he stop being so damn predictable?_ He's also studying at the Vale, in the _best school in the Seven Cities_ , as he describes it, on his third year. Bran makes her promise to buy him Chemistry books by _Levine_ or _Petrucci_ as "additional reading," while little Rickon hugs her so very tight and cries that he doesn't want to lose his sister.

"Hey! I'm still here dumbass!" Arya hisses at him while prying his hands away from Sansa's middle, ignoring their mother's disapproving glare. To her, Arya whispers, "I know you know better than to trust our foolish older brother in his _I'm gonna protect you_ -bullshit right?" Sansa chuckles and nods. "Good. Take care Sansa. I love you. Don't you dare tell anyone I said that."

Minutes later, she's on the window seat, enjoying the view, with Robb on her right, going on and on about his excitement on playing for the Eyrie Soaring Falcons’ soccer league for the second year in a row, and Sansa, well, she crosses out another bullet point on her pink binder.

* * *

Her first year’s a blast. She’s made new friends, was able to balance a ton of work (academic) load with an equally heavy extracurricular activities like no other high school student has ever done before, _and_ she’s top of her class.

And if Myranda can be believed, a certain (popular) blond has expressed his desire to date her, in front of the whole school.

This. This is everything she’d ever hoped for.

Then slowly, surely, her life becomes a living hell. 

* * *

She’s looking at the mirror in washroom of her dormitory one night, just staring at the newly forming bruise on the side of her arm. _This is the first time he hit me._ She scrubs it with soap and water, hoping for some miracle that it’d fade away like the stars and moons Rickon was so adamant to keep on his skin when they were kids.

It doesn’t fade away. 

* * *

Sansa doesn't know how she's come to this.

One moment she's on top of her game, the other, she's slumped in her dormitory room, eating lemon custard ice cream at three am while watching Candy Jar on Netflix, crying about the death of a fictional school counselor. The one they have in the Vale is a creepy old man named Petyr Baelish with that _Mr. Harvey vibes mustache_ from the Lovely Bones, and she could not get herself to run to him about her problems for the second time. No. Not again.

For the third time in the duration of this movie, Sansa fancies herself as Lona - someone who's smart, and dedicated, and continuously pushing herself to her limits to get to her goal. She struggles, but she eventually gets her _happy ending_. Sansa cries harder, because she doesn't think she'll be able to get back up, not with being Joffrey's girlfriend, not as someone he treats as a toy he can throw around and play with. He had made her feel useless and dumb numerous times, and whenever she gets excited about something, he gets bored and it's as if she's talking to a wall.

She wants someone who'll talk with her, someone who she can challenge without the fear of a bruise and an impending pain. _A Bennet_.

She looks now to her pink binder, sitting idly on top of her messy desk (younger Sansa would shriek at the state of it), covered by a thin layer of dust. She's three pages behind her checklist - and it's been weeks since she updated it.

It's times like these that makes her realize that Grandpa Rickard might be, absolutely, irrevocably, wrong.

* * *

She graduates eventually - for all the things she had lost care about (herself, her well-being, her health), she's more afraid of failing. She gets into her dream school (well, 8-year-old Sansa's dream school), she pushes, and pushes, and she doesn't stop. Not once. Not ever. Because she's afraid that when she stops, everything she's built around herself: appearances, a casual air of being okay, and all that shit that'll make everyone think nothing's amiss, will crumble into tiny little pieces that'll be blown away in a single breath. She can't afford that.

In the past years, Sansa trains herself to always have a smile on her face, to always have a pleasant exterior that'll entice people to think that she's a normal person and not some crazed lunatic who constantly has to calm that shouting voice inside her mind that's saying so many unpleasing things. She acts in a way that is not Sansa Stark in the past at all. She doesn't even know who Sansa Stark is, anymore.

Sansa has broken it up with Joffrey, finally, after several tries. Good thing Margaery Tyrell came in when she had, because Sansa doesn’t know what to do anymore. That said, she’s still not okay, still processing everything that’s happened to her. It doesn’t feel real, but she can’t break down now, when everybody’s looking at 16-year-old Sansa Stark, whoever that is supposed to be - out to become the best person everyone expects her to be.

She hates it and she hates everyone who isn't smart enough to see through the ruse, including herself. 

* * *

It doesn't last though, this act. She's tired, and quite frankly, starting to get pissed off at this … this _fucker_ who is supposed to be working with her on their lab report that's due 4 hours later, and they're (she's) not even halfway done yet. Other times, she'd be like, _yes, just fucking leave me to it because I don't trust any of you to do your parts well, might as well let me do everything to save me the trouble and all the stress wrangling everyone of you, my group mates, to work on a single project would've brought me._ Sometimes, she'd be like, _bitch, I can't carry both me and you on my shoulders, help me please._ But you know, everyone to her own.

Now, she's got 3 other papers from her other subjects due at midnight too, and she also needs to pass her thesis proposal to her adviser soon. To be honest, she's starting to get a little crazy.

_Where the fuck are you?_

Just when she's starting to doze off on her seat at the library, she sees a shadow pass over her eyes. Sansa does a double take, and when she looks up, she notices, it's not a shadow at all. It's Jon _fucking_ Snow. Finally.

"What are you still doing here?" _Seven hells. The nerve of him._

"Doing our 102.2 lab report. Thank you, by the way, you've been a real help. Nice work team!" _Okay, dial it back Sansa, geez._

Jon furrows his brows. "The one about the real gases? I've already passed that one, maybe 4 or 5 hours ago."

_What the fuck?_

"What are you talking about? It's here, I'm still typing it up."

"Oh, didn’t you get my message? I got tired of waiting for your part in the paper, so I just did it myself.”

_What the actual fuck?!_

“I thought I told you to send your part to me, not the other way around?” Sansa hissed. “Real gases were mine to compile, and submit, yours was the next experiment, did you forget?”

Jon contemplates this for a moment, and then something passes over his eyes. “Oh yeah, right.” He chuckles. _Chuckles!_ “My bad. Why don’t you do the next one, then.” And he strutted away like he has done nothing wrong.

Sansa’s fuming, but due to years of experience of handling her cool, she gets by. “By the way, I cc’d you in the submission to Professor Tarth.” _Damn him, he’s still here_. “Just in case, you know, you wanted to check the answers.”

Sansa checks her email on her laptop and sees an email from Jon, sent at exactly 4:00 pm.

“Good night, Sansa. See you in class.” Sansa opens the file and critiques Jon’s work, and aside from a minor spelling error, it’s actually, … it’s pretty well-written. He discussed some valid points that she would’ve missed in her anxiety-driven work. She’s still a little pissed off at Jon though.

She gets to submit her other requirements only an hour before deadline. Sansa manages to go through them without stressing about, thinking about Jon Snow, and his obnoxious self, and his bad communication skills, only once.

* * *

They’re good lab partners, her and Jon – when they’re not butting heads or screaming at each other. It’s clear that both were used to the only one working in a pair, or in a group, and so, they’re both hoarding all the work to themselves because they don’t trust the other to do their work well. It’s a weird thing.

It comes to a point where when asked to pair up by the professor for a project or a simple seatwork, they’d immediately sit with each other and work smoothly. They’d had a total of 3 classes together in their first semester, then 2 the next, and so on, asking each other at the beginning of the sem which classes or professor they’d enlist in, so that they’d be classmates (and pairs) again. They wouldn’t admit to themselves that it’s a conscious choice, them enlisting in the same classes almost every sem. It’s just, coincidence really.

Yes, Sansa thinks, it’s all just coincidence as she picks a 7 am laboratory class for the second sem in a row after a particularly fruitful text message from Jon earlier that afternoon. No, _she shakes her head, disbelievingly ,_ it wasn’t because Jon picked that class too.

Bran visits her that week, when she was enlisting classes, wanting to see more of his dream university before he decides where to study college. Sansa helps him tour the school. He looks at her class schedule and pretends to throw up.

“A 7 am lab class? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What? I’m a morning person. And besides, Jon’s in that class too.”

“Jon? The lab partner you couldn’t stop talking about?”

Sansa flushes. “I do not talk about Jon that much! Well, maybe I talk about him because he’s so … so… ugh! Infuriating. Like you are right now!”

Bran has a glint in his eyes, and says “Sure, Sansa. _Infuriating_.”

Sansa is then reminded about how she hates Bran’s eyes.

* * *

Joffrey hears about it - _about what, exactly_? – of course, and accuses her of picking White Harbor University because of Jon Snow. Shouts at her because _he knows_ she’s cheating with him, or whatever reason he makes up in his narrow-mindedness. _Cheating_ \- Sansa thinks incredulously. She didn’t even know Jon before WHU, so why would he think that? Also, he knows she loved WHU at the very start, and she remembers their huge fight about it, pleasantly hoping that he’d finally – _finally_ – agree with a mutual break-up. She doesn’t know why she still thinks that she needs to explain herself to him. After what he’d done to her, after losing all her friends in the Vale because of him, after Robb almost losing his scholarship for punching Joffrey in the face during the night of the dance - she shouldn’t.

Yet people expect it from a prim and proper Sansa Stark. WHU taught her that appearances don’t really matter, there, people let you be who you want to be. You could wear pajamas to class (though, this far north? It isn’t really applicable). You could do anything you want - she could finally be free.

No, Sansa isn’t cheating on Joffrey with Jon Snow. And if she is in fact in a relationship with Jon – _which is a pretty funny thing to comprehend, her and Jon, pfft really laughable, right?_ \- it isn’t cheating if you’re not even together. After a solid 3 years in WHU, away from a paranoid and abusive ex-boyfriend to tie her down, she just doesn’t care about appearances or pleasantries anymore (she does, maybe a little, but around Joffrey, she doesn’t give a damn).

“Were not together anymore Joffrey, so I don’t need to explain what I do or don’t do to you.”

And before Joffrey can reply, Sansa cuts the line off, feeling immensely proud of herself.

“Ex-boyfriend, huh?” A voice, thick with amusement, suddenly says on her right as Sansa jumps slightly on her chair, clutching her chest. “Gods, Jon, don’t sneak up on me. How many times do I have to tell you that?” Jon chuckles and sits beside her. It’s only then, that she realizes that they were in the library. “Stop laughing at me.” She hisses, she would’ve punched him in the arm too if the librarian isn’t looking at her with clear disappointment and distaste in her eyes.

“I’m not laughing _at_ you. I’m laughing at him. I’ve been on the other side of your ire once or twice you know, I know how it feels.” He pauses. “How long were you together? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

“Four years. All of high school.”

“Wow, how did he survive that long?” Jon says, with what Sansa suspects is a teasing tone laced in his voice. But Sansa takes that slight personally, and her heart thuds painfully in her chest. They sure are butting heads a lot, her and Jon, but this, is painful beyond measure.

“I’ll let you know that he is a vicious prick who’s so full of himself -” Sansa sees Jon’s eyes widen, “-and despite his thin and lanky teenage body he can throw a mean punch especially to someone who doesn’t know how to defend themselves. Someone stupid and weak.” Jon’s frowning now, opening and closing his mouth, but Sansa is angry at him, and angry at Joffrey, and everyone so she doesn’t let Jon interrupt.

“I know it’s hard for anyone to comprehend that I had a boyfriend in the first place, someone who, I don’t know, sort of _liked_ me, that way, but I did. But it was a shit relationship, a real fucked up one, that’s for sure.” She hisses at him.

“But if you’re insinuating that a prick like Joffrey _survived that long_ with me, as if being with me is so _insufferable_ , then screw you.” And with that, Sansa gathers her things and walks out of the library, ignoring Jon’s pleas for her to stay and hear him out.

* * *

She’s snappy at Jon in their classes. Jon tried to talk to her after that incident in the library, but she doesn’t want to hear any of it.

_A lovers’ quarrel_ , some say behind their backs. Story is, Jon had cheated on her with some other person, and that kind of juicy gossip fuels the stressed-out people in WHU, enough for it to spread like wildfire. (It’s a small university, it wasn’t that hard.) For some very bright people, and for being the most open-minded in all of Westeros, they sure love their gossip.

As much as Sansa never wants to talk to Jon again, she doesn’t want his reputation tarnished by some crazy and no-basis accusations against him. So, she texts him to meet her at the coffee shop she and Jon sometimes frequent when working on a report, in the guise of them making another report.

“Hi.” Jon says as he sits down on the chair across from her. He’s wary of her, she can tell – a bit guilty too, from the looks he gives her.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you the other day,” Sansa says. “It’s a sore topic, is all.”

“I’m the one who should be apologizing. It was a really bad joke said at a really bad time. I’m sorry, Sansa. You may be insufferable at times -” Sansa glares at him. “-but you are the smartest, wittiest, and most beautiful person I have ever met,” He says that as if stating a matter of fact, and she blushes, deep like the color of her hair. “-so when I joked about how he survived that long, it means that a stupid guy like him, who doesn’t see how wonderful you are, cannot possibly have survived that long without stumbling and fucking up, and making a fool of himself in front of you. Because I know I did, make a fool of myself, that is, the first moment I met you.”

As if he had suddenly noticed what his little speech sounded like, he blushes too. “But you know, it’s not as if I haven’t made a fool of myself after that. I did. Numerous times, in fact. Like coming up with that horrible joke, or you know, rambling right n- hey! Stop laughing!”

Sansa smothers her laugh but fails. Jon soon follows, and together, they look like a crazy looking pair, who has lost it. “Thank you, Jon. That means a lot coming from you.” Jon smiles. “Don’t get used to it, though, your formal report-making skills are still kinda shi -ow!” Sansa kicks his foot from under the table. _So that’s how he wants to do this, huh_. “You know, I could just act cold again, so that you’d have to endure all those rumors going around the campus.”

“You heard that?” Sansa smirks as Jon groans. “Seven hells, our classmates should’ve been Creative Writing majors. They know how to make a story, I’ll give them that.”

“They are. Apparently, you cheated on me with another person. No one knows apparently, though people seem to conclude your _secret lover’s_ Grenn.” Jon splutters and then groans, hitting his head on the table, her coffee sloshing and spilling slightly. “You do spend a lot of time with each other, tell me, should I be jealous, boyfriend?”

“I regret being nice to you now.”

* * *

They make a habit of it – going to the coffee shop, not to study or make a report, but to just have a conversation. Sansa realizes that they don’t know anything about each other, other than their schedules in school. So, they talk, and learn, and in the end, Jon’s the one Sansa rants about her failed experiment for her thesis and Sansa’s the one Jon talks about how the research assistant in the lab is being a real prick to him that one afternoon.

The rumors about their _romance_ is now as big as ever. They just smile and laugh at those particularly atrocious ones, and Sansa thinks, that no, she doesn’t mind the rumor as much as she did before. With Jon, she gains back her confidence. With her, Jon finally knows how to talk to girls. She’s got a spring in her step – she’s … content.

After their 5th meet up for coffee, Sansa opens her pink binder, and writes. She covers three pages by midnight. 

* * *

Jon asks her out on a date, a couple of weeks after graduation. She laughs, and reminds him of the coffee dates (yes, she calls them dates now) they had in the past year. “Yes, I remember, but I want to take you out on a real date.”

“And what does that entail, may I ask?”

Jon is growing more and more frustrated – he has been asking her on a date for 15 minutes now, and she just leads them both in circles. She is scared – she hasn’t been in a date since Joffrey, not counting their mini dates in the coffee shop. What if she fucks it up, and she ends up broken hearted again? She likes Jon, and she doesn’t want what’s between them to suddenly go away because she couldn’t be the person Jon wants her to be, whomever that is.

Sansa pinches her lower lip with her fingers, worrying it. Jon immediately softens and grabs her hands before she picks on the skin and pulls on it – a habit she’s sure Jon has noticed before as an indication that she’s nervous.

“Have dinner with me, please.” Jon holds her hand, with a smile on his lips. “We could watch a movie, or walk along the park, anything you want.”

They stare at each other for a few beats, then – “Okay.”

* * *

That was, undoubtedly, the best decision of her life. Jon is unsurprisingly gentle, and kind, and her stomach does that little fluttery thing whenever he looks at her with those beautiful, _beautiful_ , eyes. They have fun, as they always do – running around the park that reminds them both of home, holding hands, and laughing at each other’s lame jokes.

They go back to his place, because Ghost needs to be let out to do his thing, or so Jon says. But Sansa doesn’t mind – she loves Ghost – he reminds her of sweet Lady, who died way before her time. She cuddles with Ghost, who walks away with an indignant huff after Jon disentangles her to ask her to dance with him. Sansa laughs, because they seem like an old couple, dancing along a Bruce Springsteen song, both a little drunk.

She looks at Jon’s face, inches away from hers, and she’s a little surprised about overwhelming happiness she can feel on her chest. When she closes the distance between them, though, both of them are unsurprised.

* * *

Sansa brings Jon home to Winterfell on a cold winter day. They bring Ghost with them, and he just fits right in with the Nymeria, Summer, and Shaggydog, and dear old Grey Wind in the backyard, it’s easy to mistake them for wolves coming from a single pack.

The moment they stepped inside the house, Jon’s been interrogated by the four men, and Sansa has to stifle a laugh upon seeing the look on his face and the sweat on his brow despite the chilling temperature outside. She holds his hand throughout and berates her family for scaring her _boyfriend_ (the term is still new to her, and it makes her giddy and warm all over - she didn’t think that the meaning of boyfriend for her would change in the past couple of years).

On Christmas day, Sansa wakes up to warm hands encircling her stomach, and Jon’s soft snores she came to love by now. She turns around to face him, and trace his face with her eyes, as she tucks a strand of his hair on his ear.

She leaves him snoring away on her bed to go to the kitchen to make coffee, but she’s surprised that Arya has already beaten her to it. She’s typing away on her laptop, notes haphazardly thrown all over the kitchen counter, but she manages to hug Sansa and exchange Merry Christmas-es.

“You still have that old thing?” Arya says, smiling, and Sansa almost forgets about the pink binder she brought with her in the kitchen. Sansa nods and smiles too, “Yeah, before I forget, can I borrow a pen?”

Arya hands her one and Sansa thanks her.

“Are you happy, Sansa?” Arya says looking at her as she opens her binder. “Yeah, I think I am.”

“That’s good. I like Jon, he makes you happy, I think.”

“He does.”

Sansa checks the very first line in her binder that she wrote when she was 8. She then thanks Arya for the coffee and walks back to Jon, still sleeping on her bed.

She kisses him on the cheek and there’s a quirk on his lips even though his eyes are still shut. He opens his eyes and whistles. “Well that’s a sight I don’t mind waking up at 6 am to, every day.”

“Shut up,” Sansa says, flushing slightly. “Time to wake up. We’ve got coffee downstairs.”

Jon kisses her softly on the lips. “Bossy. Good thing I love you.”

Sansa looks back on the latest checked and oldest bullet point in her binder. “I love you too.”

_Find love and happiness._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> This is my first (complete) Jonsa fic so please let me know if you like it or if you have comments. 
> 
> Hope to hear from you guys. <3


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